The Fourth and Current Gym
In 1953, the brand-new school began with a small two-room gymnasium next to the old, small swimming pool. Below the track field is the L-shaped buildings that housed the locker rooms, the athletic director's office and the two-room gymnastics. The empty swimming pool is on the left. The open space on the right where the main gym was constructed later in 1959. With the construction budget to build the whole school for merely $7 million from 1951 to 1958. Unfortunately, th
7 days ago6 min read
Lawrence Newman (1925-2011)
March 23, 1925, was the first day Larry could breathe on his own after birth. He could also hear well. He grew up hearing the Polish language spoken at home in New York. At the age of five, Larry suffered several nasty ear infections, and surgery was necessary. During the surgery, the surgeon, unfortunately, cut the ear nerve by mistake. This left him with permanent partial facial paralysis on one side of his face as well as profound deafness. This event threw him into
May 25 min read
SS Thomas Gallaudet and CSDR Father Perry Seely
Following the surprise attack at Pearl Harbor in December 1941, Congress declared war on Japan and Germany. With millions of young men drafted into military service, deaf men and women from all over the country were hired to help build war equipment such as tanks, planes, weapons, and uniforms. In 1942, CSDR Founder Perry Seely was hired to work at Terminal Island in Long Beach, where Liberty ships were being built. Seely had a painting business in Nebraska in the 1910s. W
Apr 254 min read
The Earliest Known Deaf Resident of Riverside: Adam Sproat Hewetson (1878-1960)
As far as I know as a historian of the local Deaf community, Adam S Hewetson is the earliest known Deaf resident of Riverside. Voila! This much improved and colorized picture features what Adam would look like if he was here today. Adam was born in Montreal, Quebec in Canada. He received his compulsory education, probably at the late age of 10, at the MacKay Institution for Protestant Deaf Mutes in Montreal from 1888 to 1897. The signing community in Montreal uses LSQ, a
Apr 175 min read
Pictures for CSDR Library
In 1971, PE Teacher Seymour Bernstein inspired Kevin in the 8th grade to commit himself to serious study habits and make plans for college. Per Bernstein’s advice, Kevin embraced leisure reading to boost his reading skills. And the rest is history. The photo was taken in 2000. Kevin read 320 books throughout the high school years. He looked up every unfamiliar word for a definition. He also analyzed sentences that were constructed for variety and impact. It was time-consu
Apr 41 min read
Erpel “Erp” Garrett (1935-2026)
It is with great sorrow that we report the passing of Erp Garrett, our longtime school audiologist from 1962 to 2000, in February 2026. He was 90. He stayed in a living-assisted home in Banning for the last few years of his life. Erp arrived at CSDR as a new teacher from Illinois, where Dan Leinbach and Lynn Davidson had studied in the same teacher-training program. Erp was assigned to teach in JrHS. He soon began part-time extra duty evaluating students’ hearing threshold
Mar 243 min read
Bummy Burstein (1926-2018)
Gerald Burstein, who went by his nickname “Bummy”. He was an ardent fan of the Brooklyn Dodgers in the 1940s. The MLB team later moved to Los Angeles in 1959. The Brooklyn fans were called “bums,” which explains why Bummy adopted his modified nickname. Many people didn't know his real name. His nickname took precedence over his legal name for social interaction. Bummy spent 37 years working at CSDR, starting in 1965 and retiring in 2002. Bummy explained that Dr. Brill s
Mar 174 min read
